Abrasive articles, such as coated abrasive articles, are used in various industries to machine work pieces, such as by lapping, grinding, or polishing. Machining utilizing abrasive articles spans a wide industrial scope from optics industries, automotive paint repair industries, to metal fabrication industries. Machining, such as by hand or with use of commonly available tools such as orbital polishers (both random and fixed axis), and belt and vibratory sanders, is also commonly done by consumers in household applications. In each of these examples, abrasives are used to remove bulk material and/or affect surface characteristics of products (e.g., planarity, surface roughness). Additionally, various types of automated processing systems have been developed to abrasively process articles of various compositions and configurations.
Surface characteristics include shine, texture, and uniformity. In particular, surface characteristics, such as roughness and gloss, are measured to determine quality in the automotive paint repair industries. For example, when painting a surface, paint is typically sprayed on the surface and cured. The resulting painted surface has a pock marked orange peel texture or encapsulated dust defects. Typically, the painted surface is first sanded with a coarse grain abrasive and subsequently, sanded with fine grain engineered abrasives and buffed with wool or foam pads. Hence, the abrasive surface of the abrasive article generally influences surface quality.
In addition to the surface characteristics, industries such as the automotive painting industry are sensitive to cost. Factors influencing the operational cost include the speed at which a painted surface can be prepared and the cost of the materials used to prepare that surface. Typically, the industry seeks cost effective materials having high material removal rates.
However, abrasives that exhibit high removal rates often exhibit poor performance in achieving desirable surface characteristics. Conversely, abrasives that produce desirable surface characteristics often have low material removal rates. For this reason, preparation of a painted surface is often a multi-step process using various grades of abrasive sheets. Typically, surface flaws introduced by one step are repaired using finer grain abrasives in a subsequent step. As such, abrasives that introduce fine scratches and surface flaws result in increased efforts in subsequent steps.
Typically, any increase in effort in any one step results in increased costs. For example, increased efforts include increased time utilized to improve the surface quality and an increased number of abrasive products used during that step. Both an increased time and an increased number of abrasive products used in a step lead to increased costs, resulting in disadvantages in the marketplace.
As such, a cost effective abrasive article that provides improved surface characteristics when used would be desirable.